We get it here about gender equity in sports.

Each year, dozens of graduating female high school athletes here earn scholarships to advance their education while playing college sports in Hawaii and on the continent.

At the University of Hawaii, the most successful program is the Wahine volleyball team that is preparing for the third round of the NCAA Tournament. The softball team went to the Women’s College World Series a few years ago. The Wahine basketball team is defending Big West regular-season champions.

But despite the success on the field and according to the law, Title IX, it remains a continuous battle toward equality in sports for women — here and throughout the nation.

And, yes, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, the reigning World Cup champions, the shining star of women’s sports in America — deserves to play on grass fields like their male counterparts do, deserves to be compensated as well.

And U.S. Soccer should do a better job of facilitating this.

But it doesn’t, and that’s why the state of Hawaii and Aloha Stadium specifically ended up the stooges in an ongoing power struggle between the team and the organization.

The real disgrace here is not that Aloha Stadium is a less-than-perfect venue for soccer. What’s really shameful is what the team did to Hawaii’s soccer fans, in deciding Saturday that it would not play its friendly game scheduled for Sunday against Trinidad and Tobago. And U.S. Soccer played a big part in this for stoking the players’ frustration level to the point of taking this drastic step.

After practicing on it Saturday, some players said the Aloha Stadium FieldTurf is dangerous. The irony is that one of the team’s star players injured her knee on UH’s grass practice field the previous day; grass being the safer and preferred surface. (But two sources said this may have made the team skittish about playing the game at Aloha.)

I took a good look at the field, and while the wear and tear and nonstandard dimensions may not be worthy of the best women’s team in the world, it also is not as dangerous as USWNT star Carli Lloyd made it out to be. Listening to her, you’d think it was full of IEDs and rattlesnakes.

But the players certainly do have a beef when no one from U.S. Soccer bothered to even check out the field ahead of the team’s arrival in the islands, during the planning stages.

I’d be upset, too, if the governing body of my sport assumed the field would be fine because it met the standards for a different sport.

“We obviously had discussions with the stadium and knew that the Pro Bowl and the University of Hawaii football games are played there,” U.S. Soccer director of communications Neil Buethe said. “So we made the assumption it would be up to the standards for an international soccer match.”

As irresponsible as that is, I don’t buy that Aloha Stadium’s field is too dangerous for soccer. It’s pretty clear the team chose here and now to make a stand in its longstanding war with U.S. Soccer over equality with the men’s team.

“This is a matter of preference by U.S. Soccer and being unfairly portrayed as a matter (of) safety,” stadium manager Scott Chan said in a statement Sunday. “We have not had any issues with the safety of the turf with any of our users to date until now. … The areas of concern that were brought to our attention after the team’s training session (Saturday) were immediately addressed by our local contractor who maintains and inspects the field twice per year.”

Why did the team draw a line in the sand now? Why not before the victory tour, when it was learned eight of the 10 matches would be played on turf? If the problem is playing on turf instead of grass, this game should’ve been nixed long ago, not the night before it was to be played.

The team made its point, but it did so at the expense of our state’s reputation to host big sports events and at a time when Hawaii is fighting to keep the Pro Bowl. And to think the Hawaii Tourism Authority funded this venture. And what about the disrespect for the opponents. Did they even have a say in this?

Most disturbing, though, is the utter disregard for the fans … especially the young ones. I bet all of us know parents who had to try to explain this to distraught children Sunday.

The team could’ve staged a meet-and-greet Sunday as a form of apology to the fans. But no one from U.S. Soccer even bothered to publicize a practice would be held at Waipio.

Maybe there’s a teachable moment about principles and civil disobedience in this. Not likely, though. Were you capable of distilling something positive out of a mess like this as, say, an 8-year-old? I wasn’t.

The best women’s soccer team in the world was supposed to give Hawaii’s fans a lifetime memory. It did, but not the kind that is remembered fondly.

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.